Photosynthetic-Related Properties of Oil Palm Leaves Treated with Different Amount of Fertilizer

Abstract

Oil palm trees need suitable amount of fertilizer for improvement of growth and productivity. Different oil palm planting materials would require different amount of nitrogen-potassium (NK) fertilizer. Nıtrogen promote growth of plant leaves while potassium helps overall function of oil palm including formation of sugar and starch. This study focused on the determination of photosynthetic-related properties including the amount of soluble sugar, starch and chlorophyll from six planting materials of oil palm leaves. Palms were supplemented with different levels of fertilizer indicated as T1, T2 and T3. In this study, we observed that the application of fertilizer at T2 and T3 for planting materials A, B, and C resulted to the increased of total soluble sugar compared to control, T1. Total starch content and total chlorophyll content were fluctuated between treatments and types of planting materials, hence no clear trend observed. These results could be use to estimate the behaviour or biochemical responses of oil palm from different planting materials towards different level of NK fertilizer.